Ex-HTC Flagships - Mega Tech Discussion Thread

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

py_martinez said:
My firmware is 1.32.401.6. Is it the one when the cpus and power are not caped? Or not ?

First antutu test : 57000 36 °c
After 7 tests. : 47000 52 °c

HTC m8 s on + insertcoin

this looks like the pre capped software, if it was up to me i would keep it and enjoy as s810 at its full

but yea you probably dont want to damage your phone

---------- Post added at 07:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:19 AM ----------

sgt. slaughter said:
Why? We'll because if they brought duo camera to the 9+ using the exact same main sensor as the 9 then that's a shame... I'd love the 9 to have the duo still.

Yes the 9 camera is good, not debating that at all. Nor am I debating the 9+ will stink with that SoC it has on top of its battery and screen they went with.

Post was geared at solely the item of the duo camera being there with a 20mp sensor and the regular m9 not having that luxury. Seems slighted by HTC to do that but oh well...

well the day the M8 was released and i saw the duo sensor was imperfectly implemented, ie even with another sensor they still had a bad mask, i considered it a gimmick and didnt care much about it, in fact i always considered it to be a dent in the overall flawless M8 image

---------- Post added at 07:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:22 AM ----------

MSIOCGenie said:
Btw Hamdir, what are your preferred settings for the moment? These were taken with large 16:9, saturation +0.5 and sharpness -1, everything else stock and ISO capped att 400 which I imagine doesn't matter with this much light.

colour always +0.5 (since its too low on default)
contrast +0.5 depending on the situation
sharpness always -1.5 since i have concluded that anything beyond -1.5 is doing damage to the image and sacrificing fine detail (check this if you are interested)
ISO200 mostly but i go to 400 if the shutter is too slow

---------- Post added at 07:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 AM ----------

shox22 said:
congratulations @sgt. slaughter , I assume you are on elevate with the same nickname? Have fun with your brand new m9 lucky you

I just saw the grey m9 in a shop yesterday. It´s beatuiful (much more then the m8, I´d say one lvl with the m7), but it has this plastic look and feel on the back which I don´t really like. It´s still miles ahead of the polycarbonate-feel-s6.

where have you been mate? no comments on the SoC or Camera?

few more looks and you will start to appreciate the coating of the back and the fine finish, once you get to hold the chance while its cold it will feel like metal luxury, also the sides which look horrible in photos are actually incredibly slim, its one of the reasons i love the build but the front is preplexing for me, i know its not metal, it looks like metal so i still wish it was metal

vtotheinay · Apr 9, 2015

a bit off topic, but is there any chance anyone in here can hook me up with an HTC elevate invite? been trying to get in for a while with no luck. they told me on twitter anyone thats a member can get me an invite though. apologies if this is not acceptable and feel free to delete mods. If someone can help though, please PM me. I have been an HTC user for years and havent permanently used any smartphone other than an HTC. My M9 is slated to arrive next week as well. Thank you!!

afhum · Apr 9, 2015

shox22 said:
I just saw the grey m9 in a shop yesterday. It´s beatuiful (much more then the m8, I´d say one lvl with the m7), but it has this plastic look and feel on the back which I don´t really like. It´s still miles ahead of the polycarbonate-feel-s6.

Plastic look really? The brushed design back not that obvious, is it?

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

afhum said:
Plastic look really? The brushed design back not that obvious, is it?

no it only happens if the device is on the charger or warm, the first feel you get from the M9 is that it feels like plastic but once its cold its metal all over again

iPhone owners are the ones who appreciating the build/design the most to be honest

by the way, the M9 makes me love using earphones all over a gain, i didnt use any since the M7 happened but man the sound quality is so awesome on the front speakers of the M9 yet it's even better in earphones, any earphones!

---------- Post added at 07:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:47 AM ----------

vtotheinay said:
a bit off topic, but is there any chance anyone in here can hook me up with an HTC elevate invite? been trying to get in for a while with no luck. they told me on twitter anyone thats a member can get me an invite though. apologies if this is not acceptable and feel free to delete mods. If someone can help though, please PM me. I have been an HTC user for years and havent permanently used any smartphone other than an HTC. My M9 is slated to arrive next week as well. Thank you!!

i will get you one once they offer openings

vtotheinay · Apr 9, 2015

hamdir said:
---------- Post added at 07:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:47 AM ----------

i will get you one once they offer openings

thank you sir, much appreciated. this was their twitter response when I asked if I had a friend that was an elevate member that could request an invite for me haha

HTC elevate ‏@HTCelevate 14h14 hours ago @vtotheinay Have your friend reach out to us. They know how.

to stop from another post off topic, there is a huge sale on xtremeguard for tempered glass screen protectors for the M9. You can also apply the coupon code "SPRING90" to bring the price down to $3 each with free shipping. I believe you have to order 2 to get the deal, so you get 2 TG protectors for $6 shipped. pretty good deal in my opinion. looked up some reviews on their other TG products, specifically for the M8 and reviewers loved em.

http://www.xtremeguard.com/HTC-One-M9-Screen-Protectors-p/htc-one-m9-screen-protector.htm

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

M9 dark HDR experiment

This is a photo i took in a completely dark room with only the aquarium as the light source

the best way to take this shot was by HDR plus zooming and locking focus into the neon inside the aquarium before zooming out and taking the shot (a little tricky, you need to lock before the zoom bar fades away)

this is one of the examples where an iPhone balances things better, anything using auto focus wether auto or HDR blows out the aquarium, meanwhile focusing into the aquarium would reveal its detail and darken the whole scene, auto focus HDR is really bright though and should definitely be a tool to use in darkness, sadly HDR low light is too slow even slower than the One X...

i dont upload failed photos to my Flickr so you can download other attempts/modes for this shot from this package (check HDR-AutoFocus to see how bright it is, the auto ones will show you how dark the scene was)

there is no denying though, low light is more tricky on the M9 but i fully expected that coming from the Ultrapixel, the main challenge is motion blur/EIS trigger, HTC is wrong here, this camera would have been much greater with OIS

thankfully we can always take a good shot when we put the effort, as the viewfinder remains fast and you have controls, a scene like this one would have been a completely useless attempt on the G3

one more test in the darkness

this looked best in HDR, sadly in such darkness it was too slow, so it has some motion blur hidden thanks to downsampling

i was able to achieve much sharper results and no motion blur using manual mode! check my other attmepts in this package (check 2-Manual-200-0.5sec+Levels) but i like this one best as it looks a lot more bright

@Shan89 i tried the M8 zoom trick above but it seems the M9 can do your M7 trick as well

check below

sallam5010 said:
@hamdir you could also do a 2 years old trick which is in auto mode tap to focus on brightest area and thanks to htc's metering system it will darken the whole seen, if it didn't cap the ISO or even use lower exposure compensation once u are satisfied AE/AF lock then change to hdr and click !
Here's an example, first one is normal hdr mode , second one is the trick above
I think u remember this in HTC one m7 days ! It wasn't the same on m8 but it's back again on m9

sample in post:

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=59996213&postcount=490

Shan89 · Apr 9, 2015

That's great news cuz m8 trick sux ( I'm not using zoom then lock then unzoom ) sounds like to much work for me.

Dunno if ppl know for this one, this is what I've been using when in need of hdr.

Hdr mode, point phone at the sky find brightest possible spot ( not the sun ) lock focus in there so it looks good, point down, screen will look dark, take a shot and voila you see magic happening

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

afhum · Apr 9, 2015

arvind2391 said:
MKBHD's review of M9 is out

Just watched the video. Hmm. Do you guys agree that it's the Toshiba sensor being the problem rather than software? What's your comment on this @hamdir? Also, if you see from this video, would you go for gold on silver or gunmetal grey?

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

afhum said:
Just watched the video. Hmm. Do you guys agree that it's the Toshiba sensor being the problem rather than software? What's your comment on this @hamdir? Also, if you see from this video, would you go for gold on silver or gunmetal grey?

its the software and lack of OIS in low light, its killer in daylight and i have proved it, the sensor can give you ISO50 to 200 in average light and above, in low light it can even work in ISO400 something the IMX can never do the problem is EIS kicks when there is motion blur, the lack of OIS is a problem in low light, in daylight its stupid users and bad HTC defaults

its funny non one complained about smudging last year, when every camera except UP suffered form it

there are some photos in my Album here that even UP can never do:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/56930129@N03/sets/72157651646612476/

3zoz. · Apr 9, 2015

Hi @hamdir,

Can you please tell me where I can find your camera tips?

Sent from my HTC One M9 using XDA Free mobile app

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

3zoz. said:
Hi @hamdir,

Can you please tell me where I can find your camera tips?

Sent from my HTC One M9 using XDA Free mobile app

here they are

My Camera collective
- HTC One M9 Low Light - Camera Caps: It does great in low light
- Photo samples with recommended M9 Camera tweaks
- HTC One M9 Camera Powers - Part I
- My HTC One M9 Collection on Flickr
- Further assessment of the sharpness algorithm and conclusions

you can also find anything you missed in my M9 collective in signature

sgt. slaughter · Apr 9, 2015

arvind2391 said:
MKBHD's review of M9 is out

EDIT:

Congrats Sergeant for your M9

shox22 said:
congratulations @sgt. slaughter , I assume you are on elevate with the same nickname? Have fun with your brand new m9 lucky you

I just saw the grey m9 in a shop yesterday. It´s beatuiful (much more then the m8, I´d say one lvl with the m7), but it has this plastic look and feel on the back which I don´t really like. It´s still miles ahead of the polycarbonate-feel-s6.

Thanks!

Yeah that's me over there... Never win anything so this is pretty sweet.

Had the M9 for awhile here and love it.

shox22 · Apr 9, 2015

hamdir said:
where have you been mate? no comments on the SoC or Camera?
few more looks and you will start to appreciate the coating of the back and the fine finish, once you get to hold the chance while its cold it will feel like metal luxury, also the sides which look horrible in photos are actually incredibly slim, its one of the reasons i love the build but the front is preplexing for me, i know its not metal, it looks like metal so i still wish it was metal

Tried to follow the thread, but had no time to post... too many exams.

Comments on cam: Pictures look mostly good in well lit situations (- the stupid grainy sky, I hate that!), but as darker it gets, the more "oil-paint-looking" it gets. OIS is needed on 1.2qm pixel size (also for video recording, looks horrible on the m9). Hope they reduce the amount of pixels and add OIS for the m10. (12-16mp seems ok for me.)
Comments on soc:
GPU: It´s very fast, but I´d prefer a non throttling unit. If you skip the first 10/20min of gaming, you could take the m8 and get similar results.
CPU: Nice to have a "monster" A57 cluster, but what for, if it´s only used for seconds (or even less). Seems like the a57 cluster is just too power hungry to be used more.
Performance in normal day to day usage: I can only judge from videos, but it looks exactly as fast as the m8, so no real improvements.
Final soc words: Looking forward to samsung and qualcomms custom socs.

Build quality:
The front is definitly plastic, not hard to judge. But other then that: Looked perfect, no imperfections.

My dad may upgrade to the m9, so I´d get some time to play with it. I think I´ll skip the m9 and go for the m10. Not a worthy upgrade for me. Not because it´s bad, but I just don´t need it atm.

vegetaleb · Apr 9, 2015

hamdir said:
this is directed at our new sad man, in case the modes delete it in the other thread, know that just because you allow yourself to chase my objective / useful experiments and write "fanboy" all over the place, it does not make you informed or right, in fact you couldn't be any further from the truth

enough man, go try the Z3 at full 1:1 and come back to me, better yet why don't you try the G3 in low light and see the horrors for yourself, the problem is that you are holding an Ultrapixel camera and nagging about 1:1

its a dense tiny pixel sensor, it can not be better, also the IMX

and here are some low light results form the best camera on Android last year, the Color OS 2.0 app + IMX214 on the Oppo Find 7:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/56930129@N03/sets/72157650906425247/

please tell me what 1:1 detail are you talking about in low light?

here if you are too lazy:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7640/16823492365_956cf52ef9_o.jpg

the fireplace was next to the right of the Phone and i took over 20 photos of this plate, not one them was non motion blurred, do you see the smudge at 1:1?

and here is another for you:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8737/16635895918_515aa0aae4_o.jpg

over 30 photos on this one alone and yet no hope, its a blur and smudge fest

I had to discard over 80% of my photos form the F7, that form the most widely praised camera app last year and a very good Sony sensor

meanwhile most of my photos in average or good light on the M9 are usable

you simply can not nag about smudging at 1:1 from a 1.1um 20MP senor and low light! you know and we know and everyone knows it does not have the precision, but this is exactly what you wanted, a non ultrapixel camera (in fact i remember clearly you saying that you don't need low light for the rear camera and you would choose daylight, yet you completely ignored my daylight results and Gavin's)

the only sensor you can really compare to is the IMX220 since its 20MP and even bigger 1.2um! so have a look your beloved Z3 and it's senior sensor

https://www.flickr.com/photos/engadget/sets/72157648339786259/

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3955/15346941559_d858dbfbbc_o.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5606/15534404112_38ed7b5d11_o.jpg

incredible 1:1 isn't it????

As I said in the other thread, comparing an HTC 2015 750$ flagship to a 2014 LG and Z3 phone is not the same level, you should compare it with the other premium flagships, even the 2014's iphone 6 and Note 4 have more details in daylight.
Attacking me personally (sadly as usual) will not convince anyone you are right

afhum · Apr 9, 2015

@hamdir or anyone with M9. Can you try see how shots taken using stock camera app vs instagram's camera differ? Or any other 3rd party app? Is the problem in the stock camera app only or generally in the 'coding' of the camera which can also affect other apps' camera / camera apps?

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

vegetaleb said:
As I said in the other thread, comparing an HTC 2015 750$ flagship to a 2014 LG and Z3 phone is not the same level, you should compare it with the other premium flagships, even the 2014's iphone 6 and Note 4 have more details in daylight.
Attacking me personally (sadly as usual) will not convince anyone you are right

I am comparing with the only known 20MP sensor there is besides the Toshiba

and no you can not compare with the iPhone which is 1.5um and 8MP, yet it has smudging the M9 images at 8MP will destroy the iPhone, in terms of 1:1 quality

the problem is that you are comparing 1:1 20MP against 1:1 8MP which makes no sense, lock down the M9 image to 8MP and then please tell me if the iPhone still wins, you are not comparing head to head, more over we have all submitted the win to the S6 camera! so there is nothing to convince! you really can't see the endless loop you are dragging us into?

one more time:

THE SGS6 HAS A BETTER CAMERA EVEN WHEN THE M9 IMAGES ARE DOWNSCAMPLED, I AM NOT TRYING TO CONVINCE ANYONE OTHERWISE, EXCEPT THAT ITS NO WHERE NEAR AS HORRIFIC AS THE REVIEWS STATE AND THAT IT CAN STILL TAKE EPIC PHOTOS

please tell me it sticks like this, if it doesn't then you have serious issues my friend

here is a more sane conclusion by someone other than me:

Duncan1982 said:
I happen to like the Camera on the M9, no its not on par with Samsung with the S6, but its not as horrific as reviews state.

shox22 said:
Comments on cam: Pictures look mostly good in well lit situations (- the stupid grainy sky, I hate that!), but as darker it gets, the more "oil-paint-looking" it gets. OIS is needed on 1.2qm pixel size (also for video recording, looks horrible on the m9). Hope they reduce the amount of pixels and add OIS for the m10. (12-16mp seems ok for me.)

this is the normal sane conclusion after seeing all the samples and tests, instead of running and crying all over the place, s6 s6 s6 s6, get the s6 and get it over with! in fact i am willing to join effort and raise a donation for you to get one

one last thing, i will try to close this argument non the less, the moment i have my hands on the S6 and iPhone 6 i will take distant daylight samples for your viewing pleasure at 1:1 crops, i will compare the M9 using medium 10:7 ie 16MP to the S6 and i will compare the M9 using medium 10:7 10MP to the iPhone 6
.

vegetaleb · Apr 9, 2015

hamdir said:
I am comparing with the only known 20MP sensor there is besides the Toshiba

and no you can not compare with the iPhone which is 1.5um and 8MP, yet it has smudging the M9 images at 8MP will destroy the iPhone, in terms of 1:1 quality

the problem is that you are comparing 1:1 20MP against 1:1 8MP which makes no sense, lock down the M9 image to 8MP and then please tell me if the iPhone still wins, you are not comparing head to head, more over we have all submitted the win to the S6 camera! so there is nothing to convince! you really can't see the endless loop you are dragging us into?

one more time:

THE SGS6 HAS A BETTER CAMERA EVEN WHEN THE M9 IMAGES ARE DOWNSCAMPLED, I AM NOT TRYING TO CONVINCE ANYONE OTHERWISE, EXCEPT THAT ITS NO WHERE NEAR AS HORRIFIC AS THE REVIEWS STATE AND THAT IT CAN STILL TAKE EPIC PHOTOS

please tell me it sticks like this, if it doesn't then you have serious issues my friend

here is a more sane conclusion by someone other than me:

this is the normal sane conclusion after seeing all the samples and tests, instead of running and crying all over the place, s6 s6 s6 s6, get the s6 and get it over with! in fact i am willing to join effort and raise a donation for you to get one

one last thing, i will try to close this argument non the less, the moment i have my hands on the S6 and iPhone 6 i will take distant daylight samples for your viewing pleasure at 1:1 crops, i will compare the M9 using medium 10:7 ie 16MP to the S6 and i will compare the M9 using medium 10:7 10MP to the iPhone 6
.

I don't know why you thought I was talking about you in the other thread in the 1st place.
The more your answer the more it remember me this article http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5307992/inside-the-mind-of-a-fanboy
Specially your reaction ''go and get the S6 but don't talk bad of my precious''

From this article:

Lol brainless samsungfags, if you hate iPhone so much, why do you care to watch it? Lol the android community is so damn annoying. Shut up about the ****4 or note 3, stop hatin on Apple!

Anonymous Fanboy (from YouTube)

hamdir · Apr 9, 2015

edit: removed

Security555 · Apr 9, 2015

shox22 said:
I just saw the grey m9 in a shop yesterday. It´s beatuiful (much more then the m8, I´d say one lvl with the m7), but it has this plastic look and feel on the back which I don´t really like. It´s still miles ahead of the polycarbonate-feel-s6.

Plastic look and feel on the back, really???

Maybe something wrong with my perception. Or maybe you had previously plastic/polycarbonate LG with fake brushed metallic style and you feeling is just association with LG. I feel the back as 100% brushed metal and as the best possible feeling could be. I can't imagine better looking and feeling, we talking about back only